AFTER seeing the sweet and delightful Rachel Szabo in her first burlesque night at Richmond School of Arts last winter, I realised I’d missed my calling.
Feathers! Sequins! Fishnets! Chiffon! Satin! Sinuous writhing and saucy winks! All with a cheeky sense of humour. This was my moment. So when Rachel said she was offering an Introduction to Burlesque course at Richmond Leisure Centre, it was now or never.
Trouble is, I’m now in my 50s. Hmmmm. Would it be seen as laughable if I tried shakin’ ma thang? After 4 seconds of serious deliberation, the verdict was WHAT THE HELL.
It wasn’t just me who was past the accepted prime – there were two slim attractive women older than me, who let slip early on they were also nudists. Two women in their 20s and a woman in her 30s with several children completed our number.
Like most art forms, burlesque operates within a set of rules which define it. It’s not cabaret – it’s saucier and sexier. And it’s not porn. There’s no full nudity, and when breasts appear, they usually have pasties and often tassles.
It’s extroversion - shameless showing off - the sort of thing I’ve dreamt of since I choreographed my neighbourhood friends in our loungeroom to Wild Thing as a kid in 1972.
But behind every art form is a lot of hard work. The first hour of our 1.5 hour lessons was stretching and Pilates, to start loosening us up for moves like the splits (listen, THAT ain’t happenin’!)
It was stimulating, learning to use my body in new ways, though some moves I’d already mastered when I did bellydancing 15 years ago, such as the upper body circle, part of a figure eight movement where you move your ribcage and breasts in a circle, then sinuously take the movement down to your pelvis and rotate that in a circle.
The last night of the course we learnt a full routine to Goldfrapp’s Ooh La La, drawing together the different lessons – taking off long gloves, taking off stockings, taking off a shirt, and using a chair.
She’s offering the course again next year, with Macq-uarie Community College.
